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How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

bambooimport.com

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Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#151

Post by reportingsjr »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #132

Really neat article, love things like this on HN. I thought this was really interesting: > A bamboo stem reaches its maximum height in just a few months and shall not grow taller or thicker over time. In the following 4 years the fibers will "lignify" and get their extraordinary mechanical properties in terms of hardness, strength, density. That seems pretty fascinating to me. Are there any other plants/trees that gr…

I think a lot of other grasses have similar growth stages, where they grow to a certain height and then start other growth processes.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#152

Post by reportingsjr »

oblio wrote: post #79
nuerow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineered lumber (MDF, OSB, glulam... all of them actually) also involves the same glues and chemical treatments used in bamboo, and both use formaldehide-based glues which are known carcinogens.

Why isn't there more of an uproar about this?

Because people like low cost stuff. You can buy formaldehyde free plywood and MDF, but wow it's expensive compared to the formaldehyde containing products!

Vinyl flooring that has become very, very popular recently is probably worse than wood composites with regards to air quality and overall toxic effects.

Unfortunately, a lot of the effects from these materials aren't immediate and typically don't affect a large portion of the population, so it can be hard to get people to realize it's bad on a large scale.

There has been more of a focus on indoor air quality over the last decade, I expect that to continue and that we'll see more of a push for materials that have better air quality properties.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#153

Post by dan353hehe »

kleton wrote: post #148
dan353hehe wrote: post #147

This probably made it to the front page because of yesterdays discussion on Hardend Wood. [1] In my mind I can see bamboo lumber just made with the Hardened Wood process being extra “green” as no glue would be required. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945312

If you were doing the hardened wood process on it, you wouldn't even have to wait 4 years for the culm to lignify, since you were just going to delignify it with a hot chemical bath.

Yep. I saw a sibling comment after I posted that mentioned that. It seems like a nice way to skip an additional step! Thanks for point that out!

Also during the 4 year wait for it to harden it doesn’t increase in size. So there wouldn’t be a decrease in the amount of bamboo harvested, it would just allow it to be harvested every year instead of every 4.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#154

Post by bombcar »

lazide wrote: post #141
bombcar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed more and more "glue" boards - even beyond the classic MDF or plywood - such as "Edge Glued" boards. Lots of the Ikea "wood" furniture is made this way, some apparently from relatively small scraps.

Some of the terms being used are getting more and more ‘artistic’ too - I’ve seen a lot more use of the term ‘manufactured wood’ for instance, and like you’re noting hybrid ‘core is mdf, edges are real wood, top is veneer’ type stuff that you have to dig to find out, and that is way more complicated than the ‘traditional’ mdf+veneer junk.

The edge-glued boards at Menards are quite good - they're foot wide "shelves" if you will made from glued 4 inch wide pieces; they work and are roughly as strong as normal boards at a cheaper price - and come finished.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#155

Post by uglycoyote »

This was interesting in light of an interview I was just listening to yesterday, a CBC podcast [1] talking about the benefits of mass timber (glued wood) for large highrise building construction.

There were two guests on, both sounded like environmentalists, with the first one (Michael Green) saying that mass timber was

"currently the best tool we have to address climate impact and in the building materials for a large building"

while the second guest (John Talberth) was arguing:

"The idea that we can cut down our forests and turn them into two by fours and build our way to a stable climate is absurd, and it's just another one of these false narratives of big timber corporations are using to get us to buy more of their product and continue to subsidise their record profits",

and Talberth advocated Bamboo, mentioning it multiple times as an alternative. It kind of went back and forth a bit with Mr Green saying

"Bamboo, for instance, is not structurally a material that can actually satisfy the demand of three billion people that need a new home because it doesn't build large buildings"

and Mr Talberth saying

"Believe it or not, bamboo can actually be put together in the structurally with high structural integrity beams to make taller buildings"

It kind of left me wondering who was right... though Mr Green (an architect) sounded like someone with actual experience making buildings, where as the Mr Talberth (an economist) sounded like he might have been doing a bit of ill-informed wishful thinking about Bamboo.

Seeing the process here gave me a bit more perspective on the discussion. Given the labour involved and the fact that you are working with 20mm x 5mm cross-sections of bamboo, I can see how it would be extremely expensive to build a large building out of bamboo, and the $300 euro price tag on a sheet of plywood at the bottom of the page added more confirmation that it's not going to be a practical replacement for large-scale building.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-oct-20-2...

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#156

Post by Cerium »

dan353hehe wrote: post #153
kleton wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were doing the hardened wood process on it, you wouldn't even have to wait 4 years for the culm to lignify, since you were just going to delignify it with a hot chemical bath.

Yep. I saw a sibling comment after I posted that mentioned that. It seems like a nice way to skip an additional step! Thanks for point that out! Also during the 4 year wait for it to harden it doesn’t increase in size. So there wouldn’t be a decrease in the amount of bamboo harvested, it would just allow it to be harvested every year instead of every 4.

Bamboo is already harvest every year. Every year new shoots come up out of the ground. The shoots start to form in the winter about one meter away from mature culms. In the spring the shoots emerge from the ground and quickly grow to full height. Changing the harvest schedule will not increase the availability of bamboo, since already all new culms are harvest, just after they become four years old - the system is steady state.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#157

Post by labawi »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #128
g0gzs wrote: post #33

Long time lurker here, first time poster. I got pulled into the rabbit hole of building guitars at home during the covid lockdowns. My first build used traditional "tonewoods" (mahogany, ebony, rosewood etc.) and while purchasing materials for my second build, I stumbled upon bamboo boards on a German wood retailed shop. Compared the properties to the wood I wanted to use for parts of it (mainly the core/neck and fre…

One of the themes in this thread is reminding people that it's not actually bamboo, it's a bamboo composite--sort of like plywood. I doesn't work without petrochemical glues. I think it's fairer to say your build is 40%-ish bamboo composite. When we're calling it bamboo we're doing that industry's greenwashing marketing for them. Cool guitar!

If the mentioned bamboo composite is 95% bamboo and 5% glue (going by comment from hwillis), isn't it fair to say it's 40%-ish bamboo?

5% glue is far from something like carbon composite, where most content is epoxy. Common wood surface treatment is probably more than 5%, yet we don't call it a wood composite.

IMO, total surface sealant makes more of a material difference than 5% glue on the inside.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#158

Post by schainks »

Beautiful bamboo home featured on TED and AppleTV, for reference: https://ibuku.com/

Note, little to no bamboo lumber used.

I think these kinds of homes are an excellent idea for the billion or two people living in suitable climate for it.

And maybe a bamboo lumber building can survive in harsher places, too. We will need to experiment to find out.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#159

Post by Cerium »

h2odragon wrote: post #106
anon_cow1111 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems about right; 1000psi assuming a 4x8 foot sheet, roughly. Bamboo is a -somewhat- soft pseudo-wood and can deform enough under that pressure to compress into the sheets they're describing. (for reference, I've operated a 10kton press at a previous job, which was roughly 30 feet high + underground hydraulic lines. I don't know how many presses of this scale are even left in the US)

apropos link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program

Perfect, I was going to link this as well as a response to the other comment "especially given the bigger your press is, the less people are going to need it for something."

Ensuring that large presses exist is important to national security but not important to most business.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#160

Post by dan353hehe »

Cerium wrote: post #156
dan353hehe wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I saw a sibling comment after I posted that mentioned that. It seems like a nice way to skip an additional step! Thanks for point that out! Also during the 4 year wait for it to harden it doesn’t increase in size. So there wouldn’t be a decrease in the amount of bamboo harvested, it would just allow it to be harvested every year instead of every 4.

Bamboo is already harvest every year. Every year new shoots come up out of the ground. The shoots start to form in the winter about one meter away from mature culms. In the spring the shoots emerge from the ground and quickly grow to full height. Changing the harvest schedule will not increase the availability of bamboo, since already all new culms are harvest, just after they become four years old - the system is st…

Interesting! I didn’t know that. Thanks for the correction!
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